Posted 10 years ago
eidolicon
(1 item)
I got this pair of 1920's style art glass table lamps from my sister, who had purchased them in about the early 1990's from a shop in Los Angeles (now gone) that specialized in art nouveau glass. They were quite expensive, and she doesn't believe they were 'knock off' pieces... however she can't remember the details about them now.
The raised and colored design is actually similar but different on each piece, so they were obviously handmade. The design motif trends toward an art deco type design, but the wrought iron base is the fairly typical art nouveau 'lily pad' type used at that time for lamps like this, so quite likely the design at least is approximately mid to late 1920's. The raised initials AR appear on each glass piece. It is a type of design used by Argy-Rousseau, but from what I can discover he never used his initials to sign his pieces.
I sent these pictures to a specialist in France, who replied that he thinks the pieces are later than Argy-Rousseau but that he would have to see them in person to really make a judgement.
Any help identifying these lamps would be appreciated. Thanks
Looovely!...:-)
very beautiful!!!!
Yes, the bases are typical of what was used in France for these 'mushroom' lamps in the 1920's. You can see them on lamps made by various glassmakers of the time like Argy-Rousseau and Daum and others. At the bottom is a 'lily-pad' that is textured and fluted around the edges to look like a real waterlily leaf. There are three textured 'stems' that rise up out of the base and then branch out into three arms that hold the glass piece behind a round textured ball at the end of each arm.
to my knowledge Argy-Rousseau did all the work in pate de verre technique, but this looks to be a cameo from multi layered blown piece, much closer resemblance to Schneider cameo pieces.
Thanks... Yes, all the designs including the initials are raised and then painted or glazed with color. It almost looks like a layer of yellow-green has been ground away or taken off with acid and then painted over with brown-colored glazes. At the top where you have what appears to be thatches or perhaps very stylized 'leaves', these are also textured or incized somehow. There is an identical design in pate de verre used by Argy-Rousseau on various pieces, which I believe he referred to by the name 'tropical flowers'. I have often wondered if these may be some kind of test pieces for the design, since the initials AR appear on them?